Known in the art is an internal combustion engine in which a combustion chamber having the shape of a right circular cylinder is defined within the top of the piston. The piston is also provided with channels or depressions that terminate in the combustion chamber tangentially and cause therein a rotary motion of the compressed air. In the known engine, fuel is injected by means of a two-port injection nozzle which is located substantially perpendicular to the axis of the cylinder and is disposed within the cylinder wall in an appropriate recess thereof. The injection jets pass to either side of the central axis of the combustion chamber and parallel to its bottom. The known engine has the disadvantage that the relatively deep channels in the piston as well as the recess in the cylinder wall which is required for fuel injection cause the orderly flow of air to be disturbed and also increases the effective surface areas. The latter has a detrimental effect on mixture preparation and on the flame propagation velocity and also results in detrimental thermal losses. At the same time, the presence of the combustion chamber within the piston increases the thermal stresses of the piston. A still further disadvantage of the known engine is that the presence of the fuel injection valve in the cylinder wall or the cylinder sleeve decreases the life expectancy of these parts and increases the heat transfer problems.